PERFORMANCE PREDICTION OF A MODEL TESLA VALVE WITH DIFFERENT GEOMETRICAL CONFIGURATION

A Tesla valve is a device through which fluid can flow in one direction without much resistance, whereas a huge flow resistance restricts the flow when fluid flows in the reverse direction due to complex geometrical configuration. This work performs computational simulations with various geometrical configurations of a model Tesla valve to investigate their flow and consequential effects on pressure drop and diodicity. The effect of the bent-part width at the straight-part conjunction point on the performance of the Tesla valve, which has not been studied yet, is primarily focused in this work. In-house experimentations are performed, and a few simulated results are validated against the experimental results. It has been observed that when the width of the bent part is either low [aspect ratio (AR < 1)] or high (AR > 1), the diodicity of the valve increases. However, diodicity has the lowest value for AR = 1. Moreover, a higher valve angle offers lower diodicity. In order to get very high diodicity, valve staging methodology is the best option provided, with high AR and low valve angle.